Some surgical hip replacement procedures ream a portion of a femur to accommodate an implantable femoral stem. In many cases, the implantable femoral stems are available only in discrete sizes, with stem lengths that have one of a plurality of discrete values. In these cases, a surgeon can select an implantable femoral stem having a stem length that most closely matches an anatomy of a patient.
Once the femoral stem is selected, a surgeon can ream the femur to accept the femoral stem. The reamed portion can be sized and shaped to accommodate the selected femoral stem. In many cases, the surgeon can use a distal reamer to form the bottommost (distal) portion of the reamed portion, and use an additional proximal reamer to shape an upper (proximal) portion of the reamed portion.
For these cases, the surgeon can use one or more spacers to ensure that the proximal and distal reamers are longitudinally offset by a distance that corresponds to one of the available stem lengths. In some examples, the spacers can be tubular spacer sleeves having suitable lengths, which can extend distally from the proximal reamer and can fit over the distal reamer.